Judging by the amount of reports and requests we've received for 411 on the matter, the celebrity real estate world is, it seems, all kinds of cracked out the last week or so about the $10,000,000 Los Angeles, CA crib (allegedly) purchased by journalist and former first lady of California Maria Shriver.
It seems hardly necessary to recap the recent marital melodramas of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger; A person would have to be a tiny-brained grasshopper not to know it recently came to light the groping ex-Governator fathered a boy-child 13 years ago with one of the family's long-time housekeepers. Unlike Tammy Wynette and Hilary Clinton, Maria opted not to stand by her philandering man and even before the sordid story broke open wide she was on the hunt for a new house to call home.
The scorned woman–who it should be noted has retained the utmost dignity at every turn in the mortifying and embarrassing turn of events that have beset her–reportedly peeped at a condo at the white-glove Carlyle building on Wilshire Boulevard.
Back in mid-May we were given information by a trusted snitch we'll call Polly Platinumtriangle–which we later passed along to the children–that soon-to-be ex-Missus Schwarzenegger didn't go for a condo at the Carlyle but rather leased a petite pad on a gated street in Malibu. According to Polly P. Miz Shriver planned to camp out in the Bu until she closed escrow on a not-yet-completed mansion on a star-studded street in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, only about three miles from the Schwarzenegger family home in the gated Brentwood Country Estates enclave. Several sources typically well-informed about celebrity real estate matters in Tinseltwon have since confirmed that Miz Shriver has been hiding out in Malibu and one of Your Mama's little birdies even fingered a modestly-scaled ocean front house owned by a successful tee-vee writer/producer as her temporary digs.
Gossip juggernaut TMZ followed up last week with more juicy details about–and covert images of–the still-under-construction mansion they reported measures around 11,000 square feet and includes 8 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a 3 car garage, home theater, fitness room and wine cellar. TMZ also revealed that traditional white-brick Georgian will be completed in about three months time. The house was not, as far as we can tell, listed on the open market.
Property records do not yet reflect a (recorded) transfer of ownership but they do show the house was previously owned by movie producer Dylan Sellers (Agent Cody Banks franchise, A Cinderella Story, the remake of Footloose) who sold it to a local developer in June 2009 for $4,200,000.
Other high-profile peeps who own property on the sleepy but swank street include Ricki Lake, Arianna Huffington, Betty White and Tobey Maguire who appears to have done little with the lot he and the Missus purchased in January 2008 for $10,000,000)